Cooks use a recipe index to choose dinner by ingredient and time. They adjust filters while comparing dishes. Controls beside results matter more than uninterrupted reading; equally important work areas need a different arrangement.
How: work toward a solution
Choose tomato and 20 minutes: only tomato basil pasta remains. Open its cooking notes. A 10-minute limit gives an empty state; clear the filters to recover. On narrow screens, filters precede recipes.
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20 min
Tomato & basil pasta
Recipe notes
Tomatoes, basil, pasta, olive oil. Simmer the tomatoes, then toss with cooked pasta and basil.
40 min
Roasted tomato soup
Recipe notes
Roast tomatoes with onion, blend with stock, then warm through. Serve with bread.
15 min
Mushroom toast
Recipe notes
Sauté mushrooms until golden. Spoon over toasted bread with herbs.
45 min
Mushroom risotto
Recipe notes
Toast rice, add hot stock in stages, and stir in browned mushrooms.
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A fictional demo within this article. Reset or reload restores its initial state.
What: the concept
Sidebar layout places a narrower supporting region alongside the main region when space permits. It can use Flexbox or Grid. This is page composition, not CSS multi-column text flow. Stack regions before either becomes too cramped.
Go further
Optional reading · separate from the overview
01Selection & comparison
A sidebar is useful when one region supports another: filters beside results, chapter navigation beside a document, or metadata beside an editor. The two regions do not need equal width. Choose a single column for a linear reading task; choose multiple regions when several work areas need sustained attention. A list or grid can sit inside the main region, so these choices can coexist.
02Applications
In the recipe index, cooks filter ingredients and time while retaining the result list. Tomato plus 20 minutes produces one recipe; 10 minutes produces none and offers recovery. On a narrow screen the same filters come before the recipes. A documentation sidebar can follow the same structural principle, but needs navigation links rather than pretending to be a recipe filter.
03Implementation & cautions
CSS Grid can use grid-template-columns: minmax(150px, .7fr) minmax(0, 2fr) with a content-width breakpoint. Flexbox can also wrap the pair according to available width. Keep DOM order meaningful when the regions stack. A sidebar need not be sticky: check zoom, long labels and content height before adding sticky positioning. CSS column-count instead flows one body of content between columns; it does not create independent page areas.
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